The average utility bill for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers increased by about 67% over the last five years. (source)

I can vouch. My PG&E bills in 2020 averaged around $70 a month, now they’re regularly over $170. No change in my consumption habits. If I’m mathing correctly, that’s more than a 100% increase for me.

I get what you’re saying, and I accept that reality for most of us here who already understand these things. But blaming consumers for corporate surveillance is not a good way to get corporations to stop surveilling consumers.

Heh logs.

You fixed my crappy morning, much appreciated.

I can’t say for sure that we’re not, but to me it just comes across as an outlandish concept. Much of our natural world, while often bizarre and strange, can be explained through observation and empirical reasoning. When a concept like universal simulations comes around I usually just land on pragmatism and practicalities: for the theory to be true, so many things that are beyond our comprehension would also have to be true to allow it, and since the simplest explanations are usually true, the simple explanation here is that our reality is what it appears to be (with all the cosmological caveats that kind of thinking entails).

I personally don’t believe we’re living in a simulation, though it’s a fascinating thought experiment and I can’t say for certain that we’re not. This article is frankly way too definitive about questions that I don’t think we’re equipped to answer yet, without actually explaining itself.

The simulation hypothesis was long considered untestable, relegated to philosophy and even science fiction, rather than science. This research brings it firmly into the domain of mathematics and physics, and provides a definitive answer.

I haven’t read the full paper, but the article about it says the theory is now testable, but doesn’t explain how they tested it to get their “definitive answer.” They also don’t address the fact that their research is based on their current understanding of reality. Usually assertions like this will include something like “as technology progresses, it’s likely that more questions will arise and we’ll have better tools to attempt to answer them.” But nope, it’s just a hubristic “here’s the definitive truth.”

Also, the generated images are infuriating. Either hire an artist, use public domain media, or just lean on the science and leave out the images. Not everything needs meaningless pictures.

Of course we need mass protest, it’s critical for building solidarity and sending messages to those in currently power, but by itself it doesn’t solve the problems. Sites like the one mentioned in the article are kind of a bandaid, sure, but when real peoples’ lives are on the line, and a bandaid donated by the community could save their life, why would you dismiss it out of hand like that? Seems pretty crass to me. Bigger systemic solutions are way better, obviously, but when the current power structure is incapable of providing those solutions, local communities need to come up with their own.

An effective political movement needs protest to expose the problems and bring people on board, and then the movement needs to be get involved in local and national politics by running for office or working to elect people who share the values of those protesting, to convert that solidarity into political power. More than 7 million people turned out to protest last time. What, specifically, would be different about your full massive protest? How would you organize it differently to be more effective than the no kings protests? And would your new mass protest solve the practical problems the orgs in the article are working to solve on the ground right now?

That was an awesome piece. We need more people willing to speak out about all the obvious bullshit like this, but more importantly we need this kind of critical thinking to reach the people who are uncritically driving the continued use of these crappy-ass tools that are burning the planet. I’m thinking about CEOs (who will only do anything if it helps their bottom line), but also about your boomer co-workers who think ChatGPT is the fucking messiah and remind you about it every chance they get.

Yeah that’s well said.

While that’s gotta be a big part of it, I’m not sure that’s the true source of their hatred and bigotry, though it’s obviously not the same for every bigot. I think it boils down to an even simpler insecurity. Not necessarily an insecurity with their own gender, but more a feeling of jealous insecurity when they see people who genuinely know who they are and have put in the work to figure themselves out. Gender is just the easiest part of their identity to hate. I don’t think that insecurity is necessarily conscious, though the hatred certainly is, it’s more an enviousness of someone who is obviously secure with themselves and their body.

I had a similar reaction to the thumbnail. My first thought, before reading anything, was “huh, Meta found a lesbian who hates the rest of the LGBTQ community.”

Why not? Science and medicine have always been biased in favor of men. Why should women not benefit from them too?

My mother died recently, and she was the breadwinner and was in charge of everything financial, because my surviving father is a toxic narcissist with zero financial literacy who refuses help from anyone. So I just have to say kudos to you for thinking about this difficult stuff. Your family will appreciate it more than you can imagine.

Other commenters have already given you solid advice, and I don’t have anything to add there, but more people need to have these difficult conversations and make real practical preparations, as soon as possible. Speaking from experience, not having clear guidance about where things are and what should be done with them, makes an already emotional situation even harder to deal with. Everybody dies, but in death you can make your family’s grieving process slightly easier by thinking ahead like this.

I’m sorry for whatever you’re going through, but props for thinking about other people while you go through it.

Yeah paywalls suck, but that’s probably why their journalism remains consistently high quality. I listen to their podcast every so often, and it’s clear that they work their asses off. They just took their first week off since founding the company, because they were worried if they stopped constantly releasing new articles they would quickly go under, so they waited a long time until they were sure they had enough subscribers and had built enough trust to survive a week’s vacation without pissing everybody off.

I certainly don’t have that kind of work ethic, and I still expect my paycheck.

These immigration raids and terror tactics are terrible on their own, but it’s especially absurd when Native Americans get caught up in it, and it just fully exposes how disingenuous and transparently racist the whole effort is. So I’m sorry that your peoples have to suffer even more because of this racist mindset.

From a January article:

”If you can’t say, ‘we’ve been here for time immemorial,’ then you’re an immigrant. You’re not from here, so who are you to classify our Indigenous people? These lands have been a melting pot for many ethnicities,” Hatathlie [a Native Arizona state Senator] said.

I heard another more recent example of a car full of Native Americans being pulled over, aggressively questioned, and asked for their papers, but I can’t seem to find it. It’s utterly shameful how we treat people.

Thanks!

Oh I know, I’ve been here for years despite the age of my account. I just migrated from lemm.ee

I tend not to like to name these types of extensions because more exposure puts them at risk, and they’re super easy to find anyway.

Or, and hear me out: just install a browser plugin and forget ads exist.

I hesitate to name extensions names, but I’ve literally never seen an ad on YouTube.

These companies don’t respect us, so I don’t feel the need to respect them by allowing them to force their meaningless bullshit down my throat.

I don’t use it that much, but you better believe if I go to YouTube to watch a video, that video is the only thing I’m watching.